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In Mizuho | Greenhill’s Beyond The Obvious podcast channel, we uncover the value that others miss.
Our podcast is a source for the latest discussions on topics related to capital markets, dealmaking activity, business leadership and more.
Delve into insights from our investment & corporate banking thought leaders to hear their unique perspectives on current trends and market influences.
Learn how industry icons and influential figures began their journeys, overcame adversity and rose to success.
Discover insights that look deeper.
00:03
MICHAL KATZ:
Barbara Byrne is a renowned, highly sought-after
corporate advisor and experienced independent
director with over 30 years of experience. She's
presently a Director on the boards of Paramount,
where she's the Chair of the Audit Committee.
Barbara is a long-time Wall Street veteran where
she served as Vice Chairman of Barclays and Lehman
Brothers prior to that, where she was the first
woman to serve as Vice Chairman and where I first
had the privilege of meeting and working closely
with her. I have known Barbara for over 25 years,
and proud to say that I've learned the art and
love of the banking trade from Barbara. We started
working together at Lehman Brothers when I joined
as an associate in 1996. So, I couldn't think of a
person more fitting to launch this podcast series
with, my mentor and dear friend, Barbara Byrne.
So, welcome to the Storytellers Podcast, Barbara.
00:57
BARBARA BYRNE:
Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.
00:59
MICHAL KATZ:
So Barbara, you've had a storied career as a
banker, advisor, academic, a philanthropist, and
corporate board member, and as my mentor, I had
the absolute fortune to hear your insights and
lessons from various powerful anecdotes,
situations, war stories, incredibly entertaining
narratives, as well as firsthand observations. So,
I first met you in 1998. You were still sitting on
the 16th floor at 200 Vesey in the nat res group,
natural resources. At that time, it was rare to
have senior women in banking, let alone in the
energy sector, which was very much a closed circle
of the good old boys club, so to speak. So, talk
to us, how did you start in energy and how did you
navigate that environment?
01:50
BARBARA BYRNE:
Well, I'm an opportunist. Where you see
opportunity or you see daylight, I tend to move
toward it. I worked at Mobile for four years in
refining and marketing, and that's what I got out
of college. I wanted to be around physical
product. Then I knew in 1980 that Wall Street was
exploding. If you think back, that was at the
beginning in the overall markets. I interviewed on
the street in order to be able to get a job. So, I
got the offer at Lehman Brothers and Lehman
Brothers at that point had a very strong natural
resources department. Much to my surprise, they
really didn't understand a lot about the
fundamentals of the supply and distribution, et
cetera, because I was in such a narrow function. I
was interviewed and I was hired to go into that
area, worked an awful lot on processes, pipelines,
a little bit of E&P. You're right, with an
all-male group. I don't think anyone thought I
would survive. In fact, I worked my first 26
weekends in a row with the thought that they could
drive me out. But I think you know me well enough,
that's a little hard to do.
03:01
MICHAL KATZ:
So do you think it was an advantage or a
disadvantage of being a woman? Were you able to
capitalize on being different?
03:08
BARBARA BYRNE:
Yes. I mean, you always can and everybody has a
difference, right? So to understand how can you be
heard? But I will be honest with you, in my first
year, this is what I love about... Lehman Brothers
is a very small firm, private, and at the end of
my first year, I had a review and I was told I was
number seven out of seven. I went, "But wait a
minute. Why am I at the bottom?" He goes, "Well,
we do have something nice to say about you." I
said, "What's that?" This is a legendary guy named
Allan Kaplan. He said, "You dress well." I try to
explain this to people at times about what a
review was like back in 1981, where they called
you in and they said, "Your work is good, your
ideas are great, terrific. You dress well. We
don't think you're socially comfortable here at
the firm." It was just being female. I said,
"Well, I'm going to prove to you that I'm very
comfortable here and I can do the work and we're
going to work well together. It's going to work
out just fine." I just always stayed optimistic
and upbeat. I didn't get angry. I understood their
mindset, where they were coming from. What I found
is the clients were far more receptive that I
could deliver tough messages in a way they could
hear them. I was a little bit more "wind beneath
your wings" as opposed to, "How smart am I, so I'm
going to tell you what to do," which tended to be
a little bit of the male macho type of experience
that I experienced.
04:25
MICHAL KATZ:
Disarming.
04:26
BARBARA BYRNE:
Look, everyone in this business, any business,
it's people. If you set yourself up in competition
with others, it creates walls, no windows. So, my
belief has always been, okay, here's the job.
Here's the assets we have. Here are our
liabilities. How can we as a team - you know this
because I always talked about it - how do I build
a bridge? I always would love the challenge of
"Oh, that company will never talk to us again."
Someone blew it up and I go, "What a window." It's
easier to convert someone who hates you than it is
someone who doesn't think about you at all. So,
those were real opportunities for me. Then I
started in nat re, and then what occurred is I'm
curious. So, things would come up and like, "Oh,
that's interesting." Back in the 1980s, they were
looking at splitting up companies. They had all
been put together in the '60s and '70s, and you
began to spin them out. So, I studied that, IPO
spin-offs, et cetera. I think in 1988, the initial
first time we did a simultaneous IPO spin-off for
the Burlington Northern companies, and that was
something that I had pitched and won. It was
interesting.
05:39
MICHAL KATZ:
You've built that cottage industry for Lehman
Brothers?
05:41
BARBARA BYRNE:
I did, and I published it. I worked with Bob
Williams who at the time was a tax expert.
05:49
MICHAL KATZ:
He's still an advisor.
05:50
BARBARA BYRNE:
I know. He's very good. So, if you're out there,
Bob, you are terrific at this, but I wrote the
book on how to think about this, IPO spin-offs,
355 split-offs, royalty trusts, master limited
partnerships, things that monetize specific cash
flows, and in particular in the energy industry,
these products were particularly helpful at a time
when we were going through energy crisis to be
able to develop reserves.
06:18
MICHAL KATZ:
That expertise actually was also in the tech
sector. Maybe that's a good segue to the next line
of questions that I wanted to explore, but we did
work on the IPO spin of VMware out of EMC. So, the
segue is that, so you're a managing director at
the height of your career, and you made this pivot
in 1998 and transitioned to covering the
technology sector. Then later on, you even
expanded that universe further across sector to
cover some of the highest profile and maybe more
challenging names, whether it be GE, Sara Lee, HP.
So, in hindsight, somebody could say the move into
the technology sector was prescient because every
company is being impacted by digital
transformation and every company wants to call
itself a tech company or at least be valued as
one. But in the world that we live in where
bankers covet their relationships, you gave up a
sector. You gave up a client base to maybe start
anew. Walk us through that experience and how did
you reinvent yourself at that stage?
07:27
BARBARA BYRNE:
It was absolutely terrifying because the reason I
had a technology client was a lot of the old tech
companies were particularly paranoid about the
banker knowing their technology versus someone
else. So, I was asked to take on a company called
Digital Equipment, which had been pretty much of a
house account for Lehman Brothers when a senior
partner was leaving. At that point, the sole
reason they asked me was I was a good banker. I
was known to be a good, structured banker and that
I could handle this account and figure it out. But
all I knew about servers, Michal, at that point,
was I thought they were plates. I'm like, "What
kind of plates are these people making?" I'm like,
"Oh, my God. I don't understand." But I brought on
the team, whether it was Linnea who came on board
or everyone else, and we worked on Digital. We
managed to merge Digital with Compact in 1998. The
firm wanted me at that point in time to move into
tech. This was not an idea I had, although I had
learned enough about tech over three or four years
in this one account that they felt it was
credible. I initially, when asked to do this, said
no. I had four small children. I had an
established client base. I could produce a
reasonably predictable revenue stream, and I was
in my comfort zone. They asked me to, "Please step
totally out of your comfort zone and you can keep
two of your energy clients, but everything else
you have to yield," which was terrifying. You're
going into a field where everyone seems to be
smarter than you. I had to study tremendously. I
leveraged the people just like yourself. I'm like,
"Explain to me what you're seeing, what you're
doing," and then linking it into straight
corporate finance, advice, and building
relationships.
09:17
MICHAL KATZ:
It goes without saying, incredibly successful
career in tech and beyond. So, maybe when you
think over the 30+ years of doing that, is there
any particular transaction that stands out where
you deliver value, beating the odds, representing
the underdog, or memorable for any reason?
09:41
BARBARA BYRNE:
Memorable, I can give you a couple. I mean, I
mentioned earlier the Burlington, that was
memorable because that was the year I made
managing director from that transaction. It was a
company that somehow, someone at the firm over the
years had alienated the leadership at that
company. So, I said, "I want to go out." This is
from when I was doing my studies on IPO spin-offs.
I said, "I really would like to go out and pitch
to Burlington that they should separate the
railroad and the energy businesses," and nobody
wanted to come with me. So, it was myself and an
associate that went out to pitch to the CFO and
the CEO I had reached out to. I didn't know him
from Adam, but I knew he was an Irish Catholic guy
who had gone to Holy Cross College. So, I
researched his background. I called him up, I got
him, I said, "I'm coming. Could you come and
listen to this meeting as well?" Well, unbeknownst
to me, Morgan Stanley Managing Director in
Transportation, his name was Jim Rondy, had
already pitched all of this and he had been hired.
So, I get there and he said, my presentation
was... There's often a benefit in having limited
information. If you know too much, you get too
deep into the weeds. I knew just enough to be
dangerous, right? I said, "No, you should spin off
the energy company, not the railroad company
regulatory." I got hired, asked to lead the books,
led the books. It was the first major equity
transaction done after the crash of '87. Then we
turned around and split the company into pieces.
That's memorable because that really tipped the
scales for me personally. I also had great
relationships with that company. One of the most
memorable pitches I've ever done, you were part
of. You might remember this. When I just got
dropped into the tech business, I had to prove
that I could deliver and we targeted EMC. We were
able to get a meeting, yourself, me, and Linnea to
go pitch. There were seven other bankers pitching
and I interpreted what they really needed was a
little different than what they were asking for.
You might recall that I wanted them to remember
us. Under deep duress, it was an all-female team,
I said, "We're going to wear pastels." I think you
said something like, "They're going to think we're
the welcome wagon," or something like that. I go,
"They're going to remember us. You want to be
remembered." The fun about pitching that is we hit
it absolutely fantastically.
12:06
MICHAL KATZ:
And then worked on a whole series of M&A,
transactions, data domain, and what have you.
12:13
BARBARA BYRNE:
They trusted us. Yeah.
12:14
MICHAL KATZ:
What's interesting is what you said, and talking
to Tucci, the CEO at the time, he said, "These are
the questions you should be thinking about as
opposed to what you asked us to come talk about."
12:27
BARBARA BYRNE:
He did. It was three women, and I think we ran
into Morgan Stanley in the lobby when we came in.
12:33
MICHAL KATZ:
We definitely ran into someone in the lobby.
12:36
BARBARA BYRNE:
Somebody was in the lobby, and they looked at us
like, "What are these women doing?" But you
figure, "My God, these guys have been through
multiple pitches. How do we stand out?" Well, we
gave tremendous effort. We were saying, "This is
great, but I actually think what you should be
saying is the following." You might recall when
they said, "Well, how are the three of you... We
are made up of Israeli engineers and basically the
front line of the Boston College football team.
How are the three of you going to be able to
handle these?" I go, "It's easy. I'm Irish
Catholic from ward four." Michal is a lawyer,
Israeli. He said about Linnea, "What about the
blonde?" I said, "Oh." I go, "She's Lutheran.
She's married to a Jew. She's a referee."
Actually, she was brilliant in software, fantastic
banker as yourself. But so what were you doing
when you did that? You were making them laugh. If
you can make someone laugh, you penetrate through.
That's why they gave us the shot.
13:38
MICHAL KATZ:
Break barriers, make it personal.
13:40
BARBARA BYRNE:
It's personal. You're laughing at yourself, you're
laughing at them. They wanted to make sure you
wouldn't be intimidated in a culture that was
tough. We already knew what a tough culture was.
13:51
MICHAL KATZ:
We were living it every day.
13:52
BARBARA BYRNE:
We were living in it with really brilliant fun
people, all of whom I always found, if you had a
conflict with someone, you could just go to talk
to them privately and say, "What's going on here?
How can I help this and change this?" and deliver
the firm as well that I cared about.
14:09
MICHAL KATZ:
One story, even though it wasn't in my old playing
ground of technology but is really memorable, is
the story you talk about in Williams and you
called it a story of faith.
14:20
BARBARA BYRNE:
Yes.
14:21
MICHAL KATZ:
I love that story. Maybe you could share that with
the audience.
14:23
BARBARA BYRNE:
Sure. I think if I had to in my entire career,
think of something where I felt we actually did
good for everybody, it was Williams. It was the
summer of 2002. There were multiple chaotic
elements occurring outside of Williams, which is a
terrific pipeline company, natural gas pipeline
company. But for those, it's a long time ago, the
Enron failed. It cratered a lot of different
markets, which cascaded into everyone who was in
the natural gas field. Williams in particular
found itself in this position. It had all of its
debt, bank line debts rolling at once. It was cash
short and literally found themselves in a position
where they could have easily gone into an
uncontrolled bankruptcy. Even though the value of
their assets was far superior to their
obligations, it was a liquidity crisis. I got
called, went in, realized very quickly, it was
extraordinary- also hanging around the hoop, by
the way, really important to winning is to be in
the room because you will go to wherever- so, I
made one of our bankers stay there. He said, "What
am I living down here?" I go, "Just sit in the
lobby and be there." So we're on our way. Got
there. We devoted the entire firm. I summoned Skip
McGee, who was legendary banker, still is, to come
up. We called him Captain Kirk, the man who was
going to run the play. I had to maintain the
emotional connections with the board because it
was in deep conflict and a number of issues. What
we were able to do, which still stands as an
extraordinary experience, is everyone believed the
company was going to go bankrupt. I didn't, Skip
didn't, our team didn't. We believed we could make
a difference. We did a cold call to Warren
Buffett.
16:07
MICHAL KATZ:
That is amazing.
16:09
BARBARA BYRNE:
He answered the phone because someone on the board
knew him. I mean, he didn't know me from Adam,
still doesn't, but cold call to-
16:16
MICHAL KATZ:
But he should.
16:19
BARBARA BYRNE:
Remember, he was annoyed because he had invested
300 million in the company in a preferred three
months earlier. He said, "How much do you need?" I
said what we needed, but he was just a piece of
it. But he was a critical piece because he's the
gold standard. He was like the Good Housekeeping
seal of approval. So, we knew if we could get him
into this asset, which we could leverage with what
is now called the Buffett Preferred, which is
taught up at Harvard. At one point, he says to me,
he goes, "How much do you need?" I go, "Well, it's
overall $3.2 billion, but for you, it would
probably be about 500." He goes, "Well, I have
that." I said, "Well, could you bring it with you
when you come?" I mean, he must have thought I was
crazy. He goes, "Well, I don't have to do this."
"I know, but people will wonder if you did due
diligence on your 300 million preferred that you
put in three months ago and that'll damage your
brand. Do you want that?" He goes, "Well, I don't
think it would, but I'll send down so-and-so."
Sure enough, he came in, they did what they were
supposed to do. He made a lot of money on that
transaction because he understood. What does he
always say? You buy straw hats in the wintertime.
You make money when blood is running in the
street. He understands core assets. What this was
was a panic. So, we were at the last minute the
night before, and the building in Tulsa is modeled
after the World Trade Center, about half a size,
50th floor. Skip and I are in a room and we're
trying to get to the last thing we need to get
done. We need $10 million. Okay? This is why I
loved Lehman Brothers. He goes, "You and I will
personally commit this." I go, "I don't have $10
million, do you?" We're going to commit the firm
to $10 million line, right? We figured we're both
going to die a thousand deaths. We get on the
phone with our CEO and their team, we explained. I
remember Dick Fuld going, "So you committed $10
million." He goes, "Do you have $10 million?" I
go, "No, sir." They were terrific. The firm went
to the rating agencies, did everything they needed
to do, but he and I are in this room. All of a
sudden, we hear all this noise because that
morning when I was coming in, we were working so
hard. I had gone over to take a shower, come back.
That morning, the security guards said to me,
Barbara..." Because I knew them. They said, "What
can we do to help you?" Because 7,000 jobs were at
stake, very big employer, really fabulous company.
I said, "Can you pray for us?" We were in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. That night I heard noise outside the
building and you looked out, there were lights and
candles and everything else. People had come.
When's the last time you heard of people praying for
investment bankers? Then when we left, the next
day, because we got it done, they were in the
lobby celebrating, and it was just the most
extraordinary feeling. It was an incredible
management team. Everybody believed. I'm an
optimist. You know I am. I always believe there's
a way. I mean, sometimes there isn't, but I always
believe there is because I think it can appear. In
this case, I literally asked them to pray and they
did. So, I give this credit to God.
19:19
MICHAL KATZ:
A story of faith.
19:20
BARBARA BYRNE:
He got it done.
19:21
MICHAL KATZ:
So you pivoted from being a banker to having a
seat inside the boardroom, including on the board
of Paramount, which dominated the headlines for
the past year, I should say. It's clearly not the
first time you were in the center of a corporate
tsunami, so to speak. Lehman's bankruptcy is
another one we share. I know you can't speak as to
what's happening inside Paramount board
specifically, but I would love to hear your advice
on maintaining more of a level head and drawing
consensus as you navigate these uncharted waters
and what may be perceived to be a zero-sum game.
20:05
BARBARA BYRNE:
Obviously, you and I have both worked a lot with
boards. Being on that board, you have duties,
fiduciary duties, duties of care, duties of
loyalty to the company. When you're in a complex
situation in a rapidly evolving industry with
various parties and control features in place, you
need to be with trusted partners. It's less about
the firm than it is about the individuals and the
trust that you have and their ability to deliver,
the lawyers, your fellow board members, and
navigating misconceptions and then responding.
It's very difficult when you're in the news every
day and half of what you read simply isn't true.
I've always suspected that even in the case of a
media type company or a high-tech company, a
Tesla, it just has a lot of noise around it
because people are so interested. I mean, if you
were manufacturing widgets with the same financial
circumstances, they probably wouldn't care. I have
three other boards. They each have crises or
things that occur. So, you are summoned and you
have to be very present. You have to have
ownership, and you have to always remember why
you're there.
21:21
MICHAL KATZ:
And try to do the right thing.
21:23
BARBARA BYRNE:
You always try to do the right thing, but it's for
the benefit of the shareholders. It's
understanding liabilities. I mean, I even think
last week as you watched CrowdStrike and you're
like, "Wait for the unimaginable." The company,
that itself is an incredible technology that
protects everybody. You could just see what
happened, literally sends out-
21:47
MICHAL KATZ:
A patch.
21:49
BARBARA BYRNE:
... a patch.
21:49
MICHAL KATZ:
A fix.
21:50
BARBARA BYRNE:
They didn't test it, right? So they'll fix, it'll
get fixed it, et cetera. We will all learn from
that. I mean, the question I would ask on a board
is, "Hey, do we have those kinds of
vulnerabilities anywhere?" It may not be tech, it
may be somewhere else that you just don't
anticipate it. You do your best. You will never
anticipate everything.
22:07
MICHAL KATZ:
So on a personal front, you mentioned before that
having a family, and so you've managed a very
successful career while raising four magnificent
children, successful in their own right. I
wouldn't say that's for the faint of heart, being
investment banker extraordinaire and raising a
family given the demands of the job. What advice
would you have to women or bankers in general
entering the profession and trying to find that
balance?
22:40
BARBARA BYRNE:
Yeah, it's going to be very personal for everyone
and their family circumstances. I'm fortunate, my
husband, he's a wonderful guy. He loved being with
the kids. He has his own business, his own career,
but he was always emotionally and totally
emotionally available. I'm very lucky in that I
was able to hire superb help. In fact, one of the
nannies is still with me 20 years later, and my
youngest child is 30. So, please explain that. Tom
at one point goes to me, "Why is she still here?"
She helps. She's a great cook. She does everything
for me when I'm off running around. He said, "Why
do we still have so-and-so here?" I said, "Well,
one, she's a member of the family, and two, she's
my nanny. I need someone to take care of me." So I
would encourage, male or female, take care of
yourself so you can take care of your kids and
take very specific time. The one thing that I did
when they were all growing up, we love to take
everybody when everybody was old enough to go on a
two-week vacation, and I would always say, "Take
the same two weeks in June." We've been all over
the world. Those are really fun memories that
we've built up. My four kids operate as a group in
many ways, making fun of me, or at some time when
I'll say, "This is what we need you to do,"
they'll go, "We're not first-year associates." I
said, "Well, could you be like third year? So you
have some experience." It's fun and you need to do
what's right for you. But just remember on your
tombstone, when you're toast and out of here,
they're not going to say, "You did four big deals
in 1996 or whatever." It's going to be your
family, your children, and that is the core of an
identity for me. It's very personal.
24:24
MICHAL KATZ:
So, find a support system, find a balance outside
of work.
24:30
BARBARA BYRNE:
Just remember, okay, because this is the one thing
that I notice with people. When you hire help into
your home, your most precious gifts, so pay them
fairly, welcome them into your home, have them be
family. The people who work for me were family. I
would fight to the death to protect you.
24:52
MICHAL KATZ:
Maybe on a closing question with a more
philosophical bend, you said that you are an
optimist and the past few years have thrown quite
a few curveballs, whether it be a
once-in-a-century COVID pandemic, the 40-year high
inflation, the rapid pace of interest rate hikes,
the ZIRP era, and ongoing geopolitical tensions,
and now the elections, which seem to have another,
I would say, twist to them. From your seat, what
is your view of where we are in the economic cycle
and what are your thoughts around the current
state of affairs more broadly? Still optimistic,
optimistic with caution?
25:41
BARBARA BYRNE:
I'm always optimistic. Even in the worst
circumstances, I'm looking for the light. It's
just the way I was raised. When I was in college
as a freshman, I was a scholarship student. I used
to love to sit in the stacks in the library, and I
found a book. This is freshman year, and it
said... It's from Heraclitus. It's a quote. If you
do not hope, you will not find the unhoped for,
for the way is hard to be found and the path is
all but impassable. So, you have to believe in
order to be able to. So, I look at the situation
we're in now. I think economically, the US is in a
very strong position. Am I concerned about the
global geopolitical? Absolutely. You'd love to see
the tension levels come down. You'd love to see
rhetoric not be mean or nasty or personal. It
offends me as a human being, and it's not Democrat
or Republican or anything else. It's just, "Could
we be civil?" It's difficult for me to look at
people demonizing the other, right? That's always
a bad thing. Find compromise, whether it's over
here or over there. Just don't demonize. So, I'm
optimistic we will find our civil center, and I
don't mean that politically. I mean civil center.
We can agree. We could say tax policy should be
this or we should be doing this or whatever that
might be, but the nastiness is not appropriate. I
think that's true in business. Actually, what
we're missing and what I really would want for our
children is conversations where you're looking
someone in the eye. You watch yourself. You will
not behave... When you're talking to someone
face-to-face, you will self-censor because nobody
really wants to hurt another person, right?
They'll say, "Oh, this isn't personal," but it is.
So, don't do it. So, you have conversations you
can actually massively disagree. Our interest
rates, I think they will come down. I think they
will come down a little more slowly than people
anticipate because the economy is so strong. The
US economy is leading, and ironically, because a
lot of the aliens that are here are doing the jobs
that Americans won't do and they're working hard.
You always hear they're the first person born in
the generation. Yeah, are you kidding me? We all
were at some point, right? Whether it was your
parents, your grandparents, whatever, stop, and
yes, you need to solve these issues. I think
they're solvable if people can get to compromise
in civil discussion. One of the most disturbing
things to me, not in business, business is pretty
civil, is when you listen to the politicians
attack, when in fact we know before all this
social media and making sure I get a clip of me
saying something ridiculous, these guys and gals
used to get together for dinner and they would
figure it out. They might bombast their position
and then they can be, "Oh, we found compromise."
They need to find compromise.
28:34
MICHAL KATZ:
Have you thought about going into politics?
28:36
BARBARA BYRNE:
No.
28:38
MICHAL KATZ:
So, here's to optimism, discourse, and civility.
28:43
BARBARA BYRNE:
That's it.
28:43
MICHAL KATZ:
Thank you very much, Barbara.
28:44
BARBARA BYRNE:
Thank you.
28:46
MICHAL KATZ:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of
Storytellers in Business. If you enjoyed today's
conversation, make sure to subscribe to Mizuho
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of choice. You can also find us on LinkedIn by
searching for Mizuho Investment & Corporate
Banking, where you can follow us and add comment
to our posts about the series. Thank you again for
tuning in, and we hope you'll join us next time.
29:17
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